A review by mistressviolet
The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

adventurous challenging dark hopeful tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

 

 I will undoubtedly ruffle some feathers with my opinion of this book, but here goes... 

 I loved the first three books in the series (I'm also including The Hobbit). I ranked each of them as 5 stars. But this one just didn't hit the same notes for me. The writing is still great—lush and vivid. And there were moments when I was utterly captivated. But... 

 I had a lot of issues with this one. This book was slowwwwww to develop. The plot felt scattered and all over the place—many characters doing many things. There was a lot of politics, genealogy, and historical tales, which were distracting and long winded. There was less character development. And most of the book read like an epilogue, which was really strange, as it kept feeling like the book should be ending, but on and on it went. 

 I'm very glad to have read the whole series, but sadly this one was a miss for me.